Luna slowly and safely landed on the platform, lost in darkness. Thanks to the suit she stole, however, a flashlight was available for her to use as she scoped out the area. In front of her nothing but a simple metal hallway, very neatly kept leading to a massive, 10-meter-tall, fortified, solid, metal door. Behind her, however, a very strangely placed fire exit, on what appeared to be nothing but a simple assortment of letters on a thick wall. No actual door, no typical red or otherwise flashing light to indicate the escape route in case of an emergency...just 'Fire Exit', written on the wall. To her surprise, when she attempted to contact Drima after scanning her surroundings, she almost immediately heard his voice calling back at her, realizing the heightened potential of the communication system upgrades he had done, given just enough time to run them.
"Alright Luna, I hear you. From the devices I see nearby, you have a giant metal door and...that's just it? I only see a file for it. I have no visual since there are no cameras around. But a giant metal door? How does that even exist there?"
"Was it not in the architectural designs?", Luna asked.
"Not at all from what I managed to scavage. I can open them very easily so. That still doesn't make any sense. A giant door that weak to a simple hacked command? No failsaves or anything?", Drima got anxious yet again, "Luna I don't like this."
"It is too late to turn back, without counting the mission as unsuccessful. I insist that you open it and trust me, without further hesitations."
"What kind of hell am I actually allowing you to walk into...", he mumbled as he easily granted Luna access.
A massive clanking sound was then heard coming from the inside, with obvious retracting of heavy metal occurring right after. It started to become more and more clear by the second that, from the weakness of the door in its core system, its sudden appearance despite initial architectural designs, and the multiple layers that specifically opened from the inside first, it was meant to keep something inside. A past...no. Something more. Because even the most inexperienced person would never be wanted, by the creator of it, to be able to access such a place. Staying there, hearing more clanking sounds as more layers opened, Luna fully extended the pole of her scythe and forced the blade out, holding it in one hand while her flashlight was in the other. This place...it was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. And once the door opened, it only exacerbated the feeling of immanent danger, as there literally nothing but pitch black darkness, partially lit up by the circle of light that was Luna's flashlight. But nevertheless, being as she was and with a straight face, she got rid of her disguise and walked right in.
She looked around carefully, "Walls on my left and right. This hallway leads to the facility itself."
"I'm getting access to more and more things, such as lights, when you move further in. In fact, the entirety of the light system is interconnected, obvious for old designs such as these. I'll just go ahead and-", he was stopped.
"Do not open them."
"What?"
Luna briefly thought for a moment, agreeing with herself on the subject at hand, "I will keep the darkness as an ally, to help retention of the element of surprise, for now. Shall circumstances arise where the enemy is able to do so in greater effect due to better terrain navigation, or simply being accustomed and able to abuse dark-based environments, I'll reconsider."
"Alright...at least with that, I can rest somewhat easy knowing that you're modest enough to acknowledge that there is definitely something there."
Proceeding further down the hall, it wasn't long until she turned her first corner to find trails of red, probable blood, smeared all over the floor as she traced it with her flashlight. The blood itself, though dried up, had a considerable thickness, with a gooey-like texture to it from what she could tell, judging simply by how the light reflected off of its surface as she shone at it.
"Blood detected. It must be at a recent timeframe given the texture. However, due to the obvious humidity and cold environment, the recency can be brought to question.", she calmly proceeded.
Drima was dumbfounded, "Recent blood?! What?!"
Not before long, right when Drima's worries began to be transmitted, Luna was almost immediately jumped by a creature of the dark. The flashlight was held onto, almost better than that of her scythe, as she smacked the assailant away with it. It wasn't normal, as with much of anything in this world anymore. Luna was heavy, too heavy, from her implants, with a stance and technique made for constant states of alert, expertly trained to withstand blows and return them. Whatever it was that hit her, did so with more than mere power and strength to toss away her balance on weight alone. She was struck with both force and precision to force her out of stance.
Amidst the dark, the only thing Luna could do was momentarily regain her balance as she stepped back, placing her right foot down and jumping at a backward vaulting motion with a strong swing of her scythe up front, building distance while also fending off other potential attacks. Being right at her quick thinking, her scythe actually connected with something amidst the dark, momentary sparks flying around upon colliding. The force, however, completely ruined her jumping motion, knocking her down as she maneuvered in the ground to roll backward, jumping up and building even more distance.
No grunts or screams were heard from either side, as both were obviously hurt from the collision but refused to give a clear acknowledgment to the opposing side for it. Realizing very quickly about her lack of adaptation compared to that of her enemy, she tossed aside the flashlight and tightly gripped her scythe in both hands as she brought it to her back, pulling over the shoulder with one hand and holding it back with the other, ready to let it loose like a bullet in a gun.
"Lights.", she demanded, quickly receiving what she called for a couple of seconds after.
With the entire hallway now illuminated, she got a more than clear image of her assailant. It was a small figure. A skinny, barely alive image of what looked like a child. But oh what a child it wasn't. Its skin was rather pale, its body parts sometimes to the point of showing bone and sometimes simply caving the skin in, as if there were fissures underneath, where muscles were housed originally. Its eyes were nearly unusable, one completely missing as its socket exposed brain matter and the other scratched off, with its nose being the only semi-natural thing, along with its ears, among everything else. Its mouth, which gaped so far open until it almost touched the base of its neck, made it seem that speech was a total impossibility. Its body was just a naked ribcage...and that was it. Just a barely hanging on, weak-looking ribcage with its only task being to simply hold the top half connected to the bottom, looking as frail as that of a decades-old mummy. And the horrors kept going further below, as between its naked legs lay nothing but completely scratched-off, butchered layers of skin that dug deep inside its body, or simply hanging down in very disgusting, fluid-dripping lumps of dead skin that waved back and forth to its movements. This one's feet, one was completely cut off as a thin metal endoskeleton resembling a foot was crudely placed in a large cylindrical open wound that once supported its actual, natural foot, while the other was more of the same thin and disgusting pale skin. Proportions were completely off, as was the entirety of that 'child's', if you could even call it that, existence and demeanor seemed nothing more than a burden to the eyes of the world and among everything, its own self.
A sight that should disgust every single one who takes a mere gaze at it, Luna herself relaxed her grip as she witnessed the atrocity of an existence.
"Drima. There is a...child.", Luna carefully stood still to prevent the mindless creature from being agitated.
"A what?", Drima said in disbelief.
"A small figure of a child. I...records of my recent and actively recorded memory can be accessed within H.I.V.E. They are images with metadata, requiring no decoding, unlike the information about the system Tiki was trying to extract.", she tried somewhat desperately to console Drima.
Drima was quick to use Tiki's spyware exactly as Luna advised, worrying about the situation peaking, as he desperately accessed all he could. It wasn't long thereafter that he too, being human at heart, witnessed the atrocity himself. A man of science and a man of manners, classes above that of a mere peasant, his narcissistic self would once speak to him about again and again...and yet, when he saw this, where his cruel mind connected the dots for him to imagine the next closest thing, Lina, on the picture instead, the only thing he could say instead, in pure horror and dread:
"What the fuck is that?"
"It appears to be completely deaf, judging off its ignorance for my speech with you. I must have triggered it via my movements in the dark. The only thing I can't seem to properly analyze from its external appearance is its gender to better try and look for information regarding identity. But...what do I do with this?", for the first time ever, true hesitation was shown in what she'd otherwise take as a given action.
"Luna, it's a mutilated child. N-Not exactly. What is...god!", Drima slammed his desk, the slam itself echoing through the comms, "You think I'd know what the hell to do with it?!"
Luna was quick to make theories to try and snap Drima out of it, "The laboratory housed illegal experimentations on children. Furthermore, the tactics employed on this specimen must have been similar to mine. It found a tiny, but precise window of opportunity and opening to take me off a very secure stance. It is more than a wild beast."
"You think we didn't know nasty things went down from this place?! What more is there to discover?!", Drima became incoherent.
"A lot more. However, the mystery of the door not being actively present in architectural designs now speaks volumes as to why it was created. It was trying to keep this, along with potential others, in. Not just to keep others out. Its construction, along with the fire exit, must have taken place at times when direct movement in their line of sight wasn't involved."
"I'm not about to sit here and theorycraft about a hellhole!"
Luna made another attempt to snap him out of it, "Your input and device control of the nearby vicinity is invaluable to the mission's success and my survival. Please, consider calming down and returning to the task at hand with a clear mind."
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"I instinctively put Lina in that thing's place. I just did. When all I've been thinking of was you and her, that's the result. God dammit...", he almost cried in front of the image of the mutilated child. In front of the image of what his own creation had done.
Luna acted instinctively, "God dammit."
In an instant, not knowing herself what she was doing, she threw her scythe right by the child, it almost immediately turning and attempting to pursue it when it felt the strong vibration going by. With the same poise and precision from all that she did earlier, Luna jumped right at the kid, completely apprehending it and locking it down as they both fell on the ground, both her legs between the child's pushing down and her hand underneath and over its armpits, grabbing tightly on its head as she pushed and forced its shoulders inward and unable to move. Both of them kept on wrestling as grunting, humming and moaning from the almost severed mouth of the child kept on echoing in the chambers and most importantly, Drima's comms.
"What's going on?! What are you doing?!"
Luna struggled very little to subdue the child, "I am hoping to subdue and knock the subject unconscious, to further help it by-"
Wishful thinking, aimed to aid the poor soul? Perhaps. Her words, however, were interrupted by a very clear sound, one she was trained to spot almost instantly. With the child's inferior power to Luna, its smaller size and overall powerful but lesser attributes, she had come out on top with ease, which only exacerbated the frantic movements as its fear and survival instinct kicked into overdrive. And then, while tightly held in the locked position...snap. It dropped everything it was doing. No movements, no grunts, nothing. And as to what that snap was, well...she knew so very well.
Drima paused as he found little remaining courage to ask, "Luna...what was that? Why...why did it stop?"
Luna got up, cleaned herself and grabbed her scythe. She looked at the child, now lying dead on the floor, covered in blood that was never truly its own. She proceeded to walk down the hallway, far, far away from the body. It all happened so quickly. But the outcome, while for the best, certainly didn't stick with her, as it wouldn't also do with many others. But although she knew it was for the best deep down. Where her natural, instinctual care, combined with Drima's mention of Lina swapping places with a child around her age, caused her to try and subdue it in order to maybe have a sliver of a chance to retrieve it, in reality...death was so, so much better. Drima was completely ignored by her, until a few hallways down, he raised his voice as he wanted the truth right here, right now.
"Luna what the hell happened?!"
Luna stopped dead in her tracks, mimicking the feeling of sadness somewhat as it began to show for real on her face as she, yet again, shed no tears. Not like she could anyway.
"The subject...", she paused yet again, "The child's frantic movements while I had it in a sustained locked position caused its head to move rapidly back and forth. I do not know what happened, if my hand slipped away from its head for a moment, but...snapped upper cervical spine. Instant death. I had wished to retrieve it in order to bring it in front of proper medical attention. But the retrieval was unsuccessful.", she reported, "It is imperative that I move quickly, to avoid further engagements with the probable rest of these...subjects. Please, guide me to the closest available office, with which to gain access to a larger database."
"The child...", Drima never once thought something like this would be what they'd come across.
Luna got completely fed up, "If you are to assume that my actions were deliberate, thought out and without consideration of consequences, including possible mental torment afterward, then I'd advise you to reconsider. I am fully aware of the circumstance, despite H.I.V.E. blocking my emotional feedback, and my enhancements adding considerable abilities while disabling pain receptors. However, considering the information provided prior, something along these lines was expected to be encountered. I have also come to a considerable understanding of your lack of actual combat experience, since I have been scanning almost every move you've made after talking to me in the training room lobby. You have been a major component as the operator of the mission, and good at it given the major assistance. Nevertheless, if you yourself do not take into consideration that the seriousness of the situation demands hands-on attention and the ramifications of failing to do so, connected to results from failing to assist Lina's recovery, to my own death, you are nothing more than a burden going forward. It is imperative that you snap out of your impaired and panicked state immediately, to avoid averting attention from me, in order to return to a stable mission status. Shall you wish otherwise, declaration of such will lead to me shutting communications down and proceeding further without external informational input, or otherwise assistance."
The words many would consider harsh and almost rude, taken in by Drima, had a completely different outlook. She was right. Not because she was making a groundbreaking speech or otherwise angry lecture, but because she was simply presenting both logic and facts, leading up to logical actions she would take with each different scenario presented thereafter. Despite knowing full well that images of such, scaling far beyond what other pictures in similar scenarios of war he saw in the past, would take a long while to cope with, he did his absolute best as a man of science to relax and look at what he always looked at best. Data presented in front of him, needed to be cracked down and quickly analyzed.
Drima took a heavy breath, "Straight forward, all the way down, and ignore every turn. The main office where the most available data is should be down there according to my memory and the building designs. I may have left that place long ago and before it crumbled. But I guess doing so changed little more than just sinking it into a deeper layer of hell."
"Thank you. I shall proceed."
Going further down the hallway, uninterrupted completely like she was before, it wasn't long before she found herself before a wrecked, metal, sliding door, leading into a room that was very dimly illuminated by a couple of stuttering ceiling lights, and a bunch of open computer screens. Knowing full well what she was heading into, and using the enemy's known weakness to her advantage, she got in, before very forcefully and very tightly shutting the door behind her to great effect, not to prevent intrusion, but to simply avoid being seen and triggering another attack.
Inside the dimly lit room, she went around every computer and every corner she could find, having two panels on the side, and one at the front overlooking them, with a stack of papers scattered around a white counter in the middle. The counter itself supported numerous machinery, such as microscopes, which were quickly dismissed by Luna as she prioritized other things first. But it wasn't long until she was led up to the main computer, seeing as the other two completely lacked anything useful for her to collect information from. And though she was prepared to strike at a moment's notice, having not secured the room, she was still surprised by what she saw.
Three bodies of other humans, armored heavily with what looked like powerful, heavy, and most definitely, anti-Obsulyte rifles scattered behind the desk where the computer was. From the horrors she had seen before, these three were...surprisingly intact. All of them were soldiers, mercenaries, or the like, but all of them had been disposed of in a very practical and efficient manner. So much so, that they had but few lacerations to their necks, if none at all, with their guns still held onto as their now dead grip locked on to them, and not a single other part of them being dismembered, something she'd expect from the horrid first impression her previous encounter left her with. Luna was certain that by the nature of the wounds their deaths were but swift and almost without any given chance to even struggle. Precisely how she would've done it.
"I have spotted more bodies. Appear to be of Victorian official bodies.", Luna reported.
Drima brought up a picture of Luna's memory, "Wait, what? How?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes, there is. These suits and armor, they belong to the Victorian special forces. But they're a bit different...not only do they belong to the VSP, but they are most likely the Black Ops department. The VSF was separated to have the highly trained ones, like those Lina faced at the door of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, be standing guards for highly important buildings...but this? A uniform switch hasn't happened within the last half a century."
"Do these soldiers exist in other buildings?"
"Not on any non-official government buildings anymore. And even if they were still allowed back then, these suits are again, not normal."
"They were sent here. Their existence being out of place and their way of death must mean that they were connected to a covert mission to retrieve data from the building, whilst using the fire exit to escape after, the metal door containing threats like that earlier."
"You're suggesting that they came after?"
"Precisely. When the old facility had its meltdown and fire, when the situation was contained, they must have built the door, in addition to burying the place alive. And creating a cover-up on the hill above. It would take years for something of such magnitude to happen, but not if taken as a priority number one from the country."
Drima caught on to Luna's theory, "And because of the access of the elevator and the closed circuit the data is run from, they wanted to retrieve information only accessible here, but they also had to compromise and cover it up before it got into public eye first, then do so. Alexandra...what are you doing?", he pondered, "Excellent perception and data analysis as always, Luna."
She answered in her regular, hard-to-decipher modesty, "H.I.V.E. contains much more information and training modes for the minds of its users. However, more can be found.", she went up to the computer.
Right in the center of the computer, where a bunch of things were connected, one was highly visible and wasn't like the others. A black USB drive that she was used to seeing up until now. However, the device itself was anything but regular. It was completely and utterly destroyed. She tried operating it multiple times to no effect, using all sorts of techniques to get it running, those too, to no effect. It wasn't long before she decided to take the USB off and move down, attempting to find another computer to use it on.
"I have located a black USB drive on the main computer, which now appears completely dysfunctional and beyond use. I will attempt to use it on another computer to test the viability of the USB itself, before retrieving it."
"The USB...hey, Luna, did you try the other computers beforehand?", Drima thought.
"Yes, but they were devoid of any intel at first."
"That's another red flag. The main computer in the room or the one in the bathroom, you don't care. Every single computer can access the information in the facility. That is, only in the previous building, where there wasn't any exclusivity behind anything, unlike now where the director has skeletons hidden in her office floor."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Even now, when I'm trying to remotely access nearby computers, I'm finding nothing like I did in the other circuit above. This USB, when its download process was initiated, not only extracted information and made a copy, but it destroyed the original. Along with the initial device it was plugged into. Whatever information they wanted to retrieve, they wanted to make disappear from their trail afterward. Makes sense why the previously attempted copy we found at the director's office was half-baked and corrupted. It was a failed attempt. Thankfully, it only stopped in the fillings of the subjects and poor souls kept in this hell, with nothing else to show, so most of everything must still be intact in the one you found right now. Plug it in the right computer and leave it there, I'll access it and run it myself, while showing you everything on screen. The guys who extracted it died for it while it was doing its job, so literally everything must have finished downloading in there, given the memory size allowance of such a device for such a mission."
Luna did as told and plugged the USB in the right computer, stepping back as she allowed Drima to do his work from a distance, shortly being shown several pages and documents on the screen after. Needless to say, that for all the short hell they had to walk through, a very swift major success rubbed on them in this mission.
"Absolute jackpot. Luna, we recovered it. Literally, everything is in here. Entires on experiments, chemicals, procedures...", Drima dug further, "Files on...videos of...007-E. That's you, isn't it?"
"That is my serial number, correct."
Drima took a short moment of silence to quickly look through several files precisely regarding Luna and Lina, being the primary concern he had in his mind. But before anything else, when he began to realize more and more what this was all about, although with quick assumptions yet again, he had to ask.
"Luna...all these things I'm seeing. Especially on Lina. Are they all...how you'd think they are?", he shared his screen on the computer Luna was watching.
"That is correct. All this information exists in my personalized database within my mind, shared but otherwise inaccessible by H.I.V.E."
She was yet again, blank as a sheet of paper, even when she faced her past of already, vaguely known horrors by others. But to take a glance at the real, raw material in her mind...one could wonder, if there was a lowest low, how much lower could it get?